Let’s take a look at some news headlines today, shall we?

The bully boys in Myanmar are still cracking down on the pro-reform movement. In Yangon, the largest city of what used to be known as Burma, soldiers in jeeps are patrolling the streets, shouting into a loudspeaker that they “have pictures” from the demonstrations and are making arrests. Diplomats report that people are disappearing in the middle of the night.

Meanwhile, 41 Democratic Senators signed a letter to Mark Mays, Chairman of Clear Channel railing against Limbaugh’s smearing of anti-war military people, calling on him to ” publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments.”

To his eternal credit, Mays blew them off by bringing up the free speech issue:

“Mr. Limbaugh’s comments have stirred a lot of emotion, and I have carefully read the transcript in question,” Mays wrote. “Given Mr. Limbaugh’s history of support for our soldiers, it would be unfair for me to assume his statements were intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn’t share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq.

“I hope that you understand and support my position that while I certainly do not agree with all the views that are voiced on our stations, I will not condemn our talent for exercising their right to voice them,”

Mays and I differ on what Limbaugh said and what he meant. But asking the chief executive of a broadcast network to “publicly repudiate” the comments and force Limbaugh to apologize? (They might have added “or else.)

Because hanging over any such missive from our lawmakers is a threat - implied or not - that if the broadcaster doesn’t do what they demand, untold and unmentioned problems might befall the company.

It is bullying, pure and simple. The Democrats tried the same crap with Walt Disney Corporation when ABC aired “The Path to 9/11″ last year. Disney backed down by feverishly editing the mini-series right up to showtime in order to kowtow to the wishes of our free speech loving Democratic lawmakers and take out anything that could be construed as showing Saint Bill in a negative light.

Now I ask you: Thousands are dead in Myanmar with many thousands more locked up or being rounded up as I write this and the Democrats are condemning…RUSH LIMBAUGH!

If they put forth one tenth the effort to condemn the military junta massacring their own people, they’d be doing their jobs. Instead, they are wasting time on this idiotic quest to get back at conservatives for the firestorm of condemnation that rained down up on the heads of the smear merchants at Moveon.org.

Truly pathetic little children.

And while we’re on the subject of free speech…

AT&T has rolled out new Terms of Service for its DSL service that leave plenty of room for interpretation. From our reading of it, in concert with several others, what we see is a ToS that attempts to give AT&T the right to disconnect its own customers who criticize the company on blogs or in other online settings.

Something is not quite right with this picture. A giant corporation threatens to curtail the free speech rights of its customers and the Democrats are worried about something some clown of an entertainer said on a radio talk show?

How about getting up on the floor and asking if the Chairman of AT&T is on drugs, Tom Harkin? How about getting 41 Senators to sign a letter to the giant Telcom demanding a retraction and clarification? How about Harry Reid shutting the hell up about Rush and standing up for free speech?

No can do, eh? Too busy running around the Senate floor screaming at the top of your voices NEENER! NEENER! NEENER! with your fingers plugging up your ears.

And if you’re in the mood to pass resolutions, how about one congratulating the President?

North Korea will provide a complete list of its nuclear programs and disable its facilities at its main reactor complex by Dec. 31, actions that will be overseen by a U.S.-led team, the six nations involved in disarmament talks said Wednesday.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that as part of the agreement, Washington will lead an expert group to Pyongyang “within the next two weeks to prepare for disablement” and will fund those initial activities.

“The disablement of the five megawatt experimental reactor at Yongbyon, the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon and the nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility at Yongbyon will be completed by 31 December 2007,” said Wu, who read the statement from the six nations to reporters, but did not take any questions.

Of course, in order to pass such a resolution of congratulations, liberals have to figure out whether this is the week they are skewering the Administration for “going it alone” or blaming Bush for “too much reliance on negotiating partners.”

I realize it’s difficult to keep track of such diametric opposite positions so why not just give some floor speeches hailing the good news?

But noooooo. This week, floor speeches are devoted to acting like 10 year olds and trying to make people believe you give a fig about the troops. People who care about our soldiers don’t go around calling them “terrorists” (John Kerry), “Nazis” (Dick Durbin), or “murderers” (John Murtha).

And what was the leader of the Senate - an anti-war lawmaker through and through - thinking when he said this in response to Limbaugh’s smear?

But on the Senate floor Monday, Reid accused Limbaugh of attacking “those fighting and dying for him and for all of us. Rush Limbaugh got himself a deferment from serving when he was a young man. He never served in uniform. He never saw in person the extreme difficulty of maintaining peace in a foreign country engaged in a civil war. He never saw a person in combat. Yet, that he thinks his opinion on the war is worth more than those who have been on the front lines,” Reid said.

“Rush Limbaugh owes the men and women of our armed forces an apology,” he said.

Just as an aside, if our soldiers are “fighting and dying for him and for all of us” that must mean that Reid believes our mission in Iraq is worthwhile. After all, if it wasn’t worthwhile, if it was a waste, the soldiers there would be fighting and dying for nothing, right? And if it’s worthwhile, why the all fired hurry to leave?

Just asking…

With all these things happening in the world that the Senate should be paying attention to and dealing with, they are taking an enormous amount of time and energy to go after Limbaugh. Not because what he said was “unpatriotic” or proves that Limbaugh “hates the troops” - both laughable, fake constructs that only a liberal would believe anyone else thinks is true. The reason the Democrats are doing this is revenge, pure and simple. And with a world and a nation full of problems, we should demand better of our lawmakers than acting like bratty kids.